Wednesday, August 10, 2011

FOOTBALL VS. BASEBALL: AN SCWS INTERVIEW WITH FINS NATION'S THE DUDE

With football season officially beginning tomorrow night – the Dolphins season gets underway on Friday – I thought I'd take a minute to email fellow South Florida sports blogger, Chris Joseph, ½ of the brains behind Fins Nation, the greatest dick-jokey football blog in the history of dick-jokey football blogs, and get his opinion on some of the differences between the sport I love so very much and the one he loves. It should also be noted that this interview took place about two months ago, so some of the questions and answers might seem a little less topical by now. Just one of the many reasons I suck at blogging. Enjoy.

SCWS: My dad taught me to play baseball when I was five, so I more or less grew up on the sport. Plus, I grew up in an all-black neighborhood, so I was always the worst football player, but the best baseball player, which really helps the self-esteem. As a kid, what made you choose football over baseball?

FN: Interestingly enough, I grew up in an all-Amish neighborhood. So between churning butter at 4 AM and building houses with my friend Malachi, I liked to pretend I was Dan Marino. Also, the chicks. Chicks dig quarterbacks.

SCWS: Now, as an adult, I'm sure you could cite a million reasons why you believe football to be better than baseball, but if you had to point to just one, you're going all-in with what?

FN: The NFL doesn’t give a shit about steroids! They like to pretend they do, but come on. The only way you get caught taking performance enhancers in the NFL is if you’ve got pigeon shit for brains *cough* Shawne Merriman. Or are beatified like Captain Cockshots Favre himself. Pain killer addiction? Pfft... Please take more oxycodone because you're like a kid out there and we love your free-wheelin ways!!! So football players are pretty much free to turn themselves into mutated freaks with Raisinette balls with little to no policing. It also makes it more interesting when there’s the possibility of someone dying during a game. Much like when Pat White died. RIP.

SCWS: Which is the better sport for drinking? Keep in mind that baseball actually takes breaks between each half-inning. It was practically designed with the drinker in mind.

FN: Well, as a Dolphins fan, I have no choice but to drink from pre-game through the post-game interviews into the next day. So, it’s a wash.

SCWS: What makes fantasy football so much better than fantasy baseball?

FN: Football is a lot less predictable than baseball. There’s the element of your number one stud running back blowing out his ACL on any given week and/or getting stabbed by a jaded lover. And then everyone in your league scrambles to grab his backup off waivers. There are also the surprise players like a Tyler Thigmen throwing for 500 yards on a shitty Chiefs team. Tyler Thigpen once led tens of thousands of fantasy owners to championship titles. You really don’t get that in baseball. Also fantasy baseball makes you draft catchers, which is a pain in the ass because there’s like three decent catchers in the entire league. You miss out on Joe Mauer, you’re stuck with J.R. Towles and thus your team is royally fucked.

SCWS: Fill in the blank. People who refer to baseball as the National Pastime – even though that phrase originated in the 1850's, when there were no other sports to play – make you want to _________.

FN: Punch them in their sanctimonious asshole.

SCWS: Defend painting your face and/or body for a sporting event, which seems to be more of a common occurrence at football games than baseball games. (It should be noted that I once painted my face for a mid-season Florida Panthers game, so you know, rocks and glass houses and whatnot.)

FN: I can’t defend it. You win.

SCWS: I think the closest thing you guys have to an A-Rod is Tom Brady. Great player, greater douche. How do you think football fans and writers would react if Brady tested positive for some sort of banned substance? My initial reaction is to say that they wouldn't be nearly as sanctimonious, but then I remembered that you guys have Gregg Easterbrook.

FN: Touche’ on Easterbrook. I think the fans would revel in it because everyone outside of the greater New England would be thrilled if that happened. They kill the guy over a ponytail for shitsake. But then it would die down and we’d all move on. I think the whole pious attitude is a baseball fan (or baseball writer) thing. They consider baseball this sacred sport, they call their stadiums “cathedrals,” they make weepy movies about it. Football has no such thing outside of a Jeremy Schaap puff piece about some high school football team in Texas that overcame all the odds. We hold nothing sacred. Ray Lewis in all likelihood killed a dude, and yet he’s a beloved football player. Ben Roethlisberger in all likelihood raped a woman, yet you can find his balls residing in Cris Collinsworth’s mouth during his Sunday Night Football telecasts. Lawrence Taylor is the biggest asshole on the planet, but is still worshipped by football fans to this day.

SCWS: Fill in the blank. The Derek Jeter of football is _________.

FN: The Derek Jeter of football is BRETT FAVRE. Never have two guys who have consistently made on-field mistakes and have been mostly average in the latter stages of their careers been more deified than those two shitheads.

SCWS: More obliviously racist: praising Dustin Pedroia for being gritty or voting for Peyton Hillis for the cover of Madden?

FN: Hillis for sure. Guy is the first white running back since John Riggins to blow shit up. White people are gonna ride this guy’s coat tails all the way to his first major MCL tear.

SCWS: I have four tickets in my hand. Two are upper deck seats for game seven of the World Series. The other two are lower bowl, 50-yard line seats for the Super Bowl. The catch? If you choose the World Series, you get to take any girl already in your phone's contacts. She may or may not want to fuck you for the gesture. If you choose the Super Bowl, you have to take Armando Salguero. Choose wisely...

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